Okay, congratulations are in order for a great job by presiding officers and polling clerks, and incredibly patient voters at the polling centre where I spent the late afternoon and on until finishing the presidential count and posting the signed off results on the door to be photographed at the stream I was covering.

Everyone got better at adapting to the absence of the technology and the cumbersome process and voters moved much faster through the remaining lines in late afternoon and early evening. Having stood in the hot son all day in huge lines surely motivated everyone to get done, but essentially no grousing was to be heard where I was at that point.

Turnout at the stream I closed was 626 valid votes cast for president from 755 registered voters. So over 80%. The boxes were jammed full of ballots but the system worked. Totals for president were Odinga 433, Kenyatta 170, Mudavadi 8, Kenneth 7 and the rest less. Dida was the only presidential candidate in that stream to get 0.

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Took leave from corporate career as American lawyer to “assist” democracy in East Africa. After stolen '07 election in Kenya and violent aftermath I have tried to bring out truth of events for those who care in hope we can learn and do better.

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Andrew J Franklin

The transparency achieved by televising in real time the running totals in the presidential contest has had the unintended consequences of paralyzing the country and, perhaps, accelerating the impulse for the “losers” to begin looking for alternatives on the road to power. News reports, unfiltered information, snap punditry and the seemingly glacial pace of IEBC processes is steadily undermining the real story of this election: despite the last elections and the five years of GNU failures Kenyans turned out in massive numbers to peacefully vote on March 4th! Right now however we can see that the country’s ruling elite is once again snatching defeat from the jaws of victory as millions of wananchi watch helplessly from the sidelines!